I’m not sure if it’s from the quilt expo, or pinterest or seeing other people’s homes decorated so nicely but I suddenly got the urge to reorganize and finish decorating the quilt room, landing and guest room. First thing I did was to spend a little time in each area and sketch out what I think I want to change so I can actually start changing things – it’s hard to start decorating anything if you don’t know what you want it to look like.
In the quilt room, I decided I wanted to do all of the following things:
- Get rid of bookshelf and CD rack and replace them with modular cube storage or some other nice looking shelves that will be usable for quilting stuff
- Remove or replace the ugly closet doors and upgrade the closet storage by getting rid of the ugly (and pain-in-the-butt) plastic storage and replace it with some functional and pretty storage
- Add artwork and decorative elements to make the new organized areas look pretty
- Reorganize fabric scraps and add additional shelving in my big desk to accommodate more fabric baskets (right now the fabric is in huge heaps and it’s a crazy mess in there but at least you can’t see it since there are cabinet doors hiding it)
- Add a design wall: a large area with batting or felt on it so you can stick quilt blocks on there and arrange them however you want (the cotton quilt squares will stick to the batting almost like velcro except more gentle)
- Create some sort of pegboard or other organizer to hang the rest of my quilting notions and get them more accessible than their current locations
- Eventually, I want to paint the desk (currently in the landing) white and move it into the quilt room in place of the ugly red/black plywood desk I have now. I’d also like to make my thread rack recessed into the wall and framed, with some other pretty art around it.
Looking at the long wall on the quilt room. On the far left you can see part of the desk I want to move there. Center shows my framed thread & art. Right shows the organizer station
Top part shows the short wall with new modular storage, bottom shows closet area
Short wall where the modular storage will go
Current closet area
In the landing, I decided I wanted to do the following:
- Make some sort of rack for my batting and other bolts of fabric so I don’t have to deal with the big box or the other bolts just laying around
- Make “curtains” to go around the quilt machine so it doesn’t look so crazy when you look up from the first floor
- Make some sort of rail holders so that I can remove all the quilt rails and store them more securely when not in use (the center of the rods are starting to sag)
- Make a sewing machine cover for the quilt machine (can’t do it until I make the rod holder and remove the rods) to protect it from dust
- Eventually, we will move the desk out of the landing (see the quilt room plans, above) and in its place I want to put a sleeper sofa with some art above it. I also will want to paint, replace the hideous ceiling fan up there and put up some finishing touches, art, etc. Going to need to save up for the sleeper sofa though…
Current quilt machine storage
In the guest room, I probably won’t be able to make a whole lot of progress until we save up some money but here’s what I’d like to do:
- Paint the walls and maybe do a stenciled design on one wall
- Replace the heavy drapes with Roman Shades
- Make a bed quilt that’s more bright and cheery than my current duvet cover
- Get a headboard, two nightstands, new dresser, mirror and a bigger quilt rack
- Add decorations and finishing touches
New dresser, mirror & lamps. On the right is the leaning quilt rack
Short wall with closet and new bulletin board over desk
Ryan thinks it’s silly to be doing all this decorating upstairs (he says no one sees that anyways) when none of the downstairs is decorated but there aren’t a lot of major purchases required for the upstairs and I finally know what I want. I have no clue what we’ll do downstairs in the common areas and if we want to replace our pink and green marble flooring it won’t be cheap…so for now I’m working on the rooms that are a little easier and then eventually I’ll make my way downstairs, LOL.
